


Savior Complex

by arson_and_absinthe



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nonbinary Kurapika (Hunter X Hunter), Post-Dark Continent Arc, kurapika is an edgy bitch, kurapika is trans in this fuck you, leopika - Freeform, leorio is a college student, no beta we die like men, this is really self indulgent lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28132485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arson_and_absinthe/pseuds/arson_and_absinthe
Summary: Kurapika hangs out in alleyways and refuses to pick up the phone, and Leorio just wants to get his term paper done(aka Kurapika is a self-destructive mess and Leorio knocks some sense into him)
Relationships: Kurapika & Leorio Paladiknight, Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After years of lurking on ao3 I finally made my own profile just to add fuel to the Leopika garbage fire. Was getting sick of hurt/comfort that turned into smut, was getting ESPECIALLY sick of people writing Kurapika as a soft tragic figure like he isn't completely unhinged. Also, Leo is funny. Let him be funny. 
> 
> I'm non-binary so I guess this is own-voices??? It's only mentioned a couple of times but Pika is afab because I'm a fucking kinnie
> 
> TW for angst and all that jazz, but tbh I don't think it's gonna end up being that heavy. I like my trauma with a side of self-deprecating humor. Nihilism is the spice of life, babey!!
> 
> \--Blue

_ Vodka, _ Leorio decided,  _ is not an appropriate substitute for breakfast. Noted. _

Any medical student worth his salt would have known that already. And, to his credit, Leorio  _ did  _ know that already. Unfortunately, knowing that something is wrong and being able to resist doing it are two very different practices. Especially when you’re twenty, and it’s three a.m., and you have a part-time job as a medic for an elite team of hunters, and on top of all of that you have an anatomy paper due tomorrow.

At least he wasn’t living on Monster anymore. That shit was toxic. Vodka was vaguely related to a vegetable.  _ Vodka is made of potatoes, right? _

The desktop light in his tiny dorm room was orange, in that ugly late-night/early-morning way that makes shadows feel longer. It was offset only by the purple lava lamp haphazardly shoved into the corner of Leorio’s nightstand, which was new enough to glow faintly but old enough that the paraffin inside clumped together more than it moved. The tick of the analog clock set above the door frame was steady. It seemed to get louder when Leorio focused on it. 

In true college freshman fashion, he was hunched over his laptop, spine curved into a C and fingers turning to lead on the keyboard. His hair wasn’t gelled and it fell in his eyes, brushing the frames of his rarely-worn prescription glasses. They weren’t tiny like his sunglasses, which he had initially started wearing as a joke but had gradually grown attached to. They were a cool color, Gon had said. They made his eyes look even smaller, in Killua’s less than humble opinion. 

Kurapika liked them. They suited Leorio.

He slapped himself awake. Somehow nights like this, after a day of shadowing grad students and an afternoon spent listening to Cheadle’s often pointless updates, Leorio’s mind always found its way back to the same place. Frat parties and beer pong were only temporary distractions. Every time he looked at his phone (unanswered, as always) he was reminded that the one person he really wanted to spend time with was half a world away, even in the same city. Spam phone calls were torture. He picked up every time, hoping it was Kurapika calling from a payphone or a new number. It never was. 

Leorio closed his laptop for the night, sighing in resignation. He could pull the hunter card on his professor again. It always came in handy. 

Forehead on his desk, gangly limbs crunched up into his pajamas, he fell asleep. His phone fell from his hand and landed softly on the carpet under his chair.

He wouldn’t see the text until the next morning.

_ Hey. It’s me. Tell Cheadle I’ll be there tomorrow. -K _

* * *

Of all the alleys in Yorknew City, this one was Kurapika’s favorite.

Not that he was really into alleys or anything. This one just happened to come in handy a lot. When you’re an eighteen-year-old mafia boss you take what you can get, which sometimes looks like a damp alleyway in the shittiest part of Yorknew City.

Kurapika had found it by accident one night when he was tailing a flesh collector. That mission had been largely unsuccessful: the collector had sold their treasured scarlet eyes to a museum halfway across the country for a hefty price. He let the guy off with a warning and a healthy dose of intimidation. Kurapika was exhausted, and in any case, he didn’t feel the need to exact revenge on a lowlife billionaire like that. It wouldn’t be worth the risk of letting his anger get the best of him and accidentally breaking his own Nen conditions; to die now would just be wasteful. 

Apparently, he had picked the wrong day to practice self-control, because not a minute had passed from when he let the terrified collector go to when he found he had been quite literally stabbed in the back. 

It was as he sprinted down fifth avenue, the collector’s bodyguards in hot pursuit, that he realized his mistake: it had been days since he’d last slept. That’s why he was so distracted and unmotivated. That’s why he hadn’t noticed the three hunters closing in on him during his brief confrontation with their employer. He could practically hear Leorio saying  _ I told you so. _

Kurapika had grit his teeth and forced himself to use Zetsu, choosing to ignore the searing pain in his shoulder blade as he ducked between the nearest buildings. Vines and clotheslines hung above his head, and the air smelled like fried food and spices. Someone in an apartment above him shouted something in a language he didn’t understand, and for some reason, for one split second, he thought it was Kurta. 

He wasn’t sure which prospect was more terrifying: the idea that he was forgetting his native tongue or the fact that he almost didn’t mind that idea at all.

That first night he had sat and listened to the residents of the neighborhood around him. Holy Chain was enough to patch up his stab wound, but using Nen was getting to be too strenuous. His ribs, sore and bruised, would have to wait. He pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit it shakily. He wondered what would kill him first: his smoking habit or Emperor Time. Kurapika imagined what Gon and Killua would say. Gon would probably tell him to quit, with those puppy dog eyes that you just couldn’t say no to. Killua might critique his choice in brand or say some rich kid bullshit about how Cuban cigars were superior. 

Leorio would get angry. He’d lean down to press his forehead against Kurapika’s and yell in his face about all the studies that showed how awful cigarettes were and  _ how can you be so irresponsible? You’re already fucking up your lungs by binding the way you do, are you crazy? _

He took a long drag, trying and failing to make smoke rings in the biting cold. He glanced at his phone and tried to ignore the little red bubble in the corner of his voicemail box.  _ 73 missed calls. _

Kurapika had stayed in the alley all night, leaned up against the cracked brick wall, staring at the rats and the grime and the sky. As day broke he made his way back to his Zodiac-approved hotel room, in the financial district of Yorknew. He wondered what the hotel staff thought of him, leaving in the late hours of the night in a fresh black suit and coming back five hours after with bloody hands, tracking mud onto the expensive carpet. They knew he was a hunter, that much was certain. They never asked questions. But it was hard to miss the way people stared. Sometimes he would catch the eyes of a parent. Usually, they would turn their children the other way (understandable, given the amount of blood that was always present on his clothing), but other times they would look at him the way his mother used to look at him, and it would break his heart all over again.

When there was a dry spell of information regarding the eyes he would go back to the alley. He felt like a stranger in his expensive hotel room, living someone else’s life. Fading into the pavement was a lot easier. He liked to watch people; the red line ran right past his hideout, and a lot of college students took it to school. Kurapika was always looking for someone, though he wasn’t sure who. Or maybe he was. 

He was going to be in Yorknew for a while, it seemed. So on this particular night, he found himself once again smoking in the alleyway, trying to mentally prepare himself for the next day’s events.

Cheadle had been filling him in on Zodiac meetings while he searched for the eyes. She understood how driven he was, how stubborn. She knew she couldn’t force him to go anywhere, especially not at a time when the Zodiacs didn’t really have much to do. She allowed his absence, much to the chagrin of the other members, notably Leorio (she mentioned this once to Kurapika. His eyes turning red was enough information for her). But Kurapika knew her generosity only extended as far as his hunt was successful. And at the moment, it wasn’t.

Which meant that Kurapika had exactly six hours to get his shit together before facing his boss, his coworkers, and the person he had been ghosting for over a year.

It was at about four in the morning, in his favorite alleyway, with a cigarette on his pale lips, that Kurapika finally answered his phone. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leorio is never on time and neither is Kurapika

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact I actually haven't finished the manga yet so if the Zodiacs are out of character that's why. Anyway I just really like Mizai and I think he's neat

Leorio, half asleep but mostly functioning, stood at the locked door of the conference room. For the first time in his life, he was early for something.

His coffee was black and bitter, but he didn’t taste anything at all. Leorio was anxious and angry and everything in between, and wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole situation. It’s quite possible that these feelings were only exacerbated by the fact that his anatomy paper was still not done, but if that were the case, Leorio didn’t seem to recognize it. 

When he first read the text he couldn’t believe his own eyes. He thought it was a joke; the other Zodiacs were semi-aware of the tension between Leorio and Kurapika. It wasn’t entirely impossible that one of them had decided to make Leorio’s life harder just for fun. But it wasn’t a joke. It was real. Leorio was going to see his best friend in person for the first time in over a year.

He was absolutely pissed about it. 

The more he thought about it, the more Leorio wanted to give Kurapika a piece of his mind. Or his fist. Whichever came first. He glared into his coffee, alone in the hallway, fluorescent lights making his forehead burn, and he thought about all the nasty things he could do to make Kurapika as angry as possible, to rile him up so they could argue like they used to. He considered that maybe wanting to argue with someone wasn’t a great way to express how worried you are about them, but he didn’t feel like opening that can of worms at the moment. He wasn’t a psych major. Self-reflection wasn’t his department. 

He’d told some of his college friends about Kurapika, in as few words as possible. He knew he couldn’t risk mentioning the Kurta in case someone was listening; if Kurapika was distant now, Leorio could only imagine what would happen if he got in the way of his friend’s quest to find the eyes. Still, he told his study group about the guy he’d met during the hunter exam, how they’d tried to kill each other within an hour of meeting, and how they ended up becoming inseparable. 

“What’s he up to these days?” a classmate had asked once.

“Oh, you know,” Leorio sighed, “probably off saving the world without me.”

Working alongside Kurapika on the Black Whale last summer was like working with a block of ice. Kurapika didn’t seem all that interested in talking, besides official Zodiac business, and wouldn’t raise his head to meet Leorio’s eyes. Leorio eventually gave up on trying to make jokes to someone that didn’t know how to laugh. Still, just being able to keep an eye on Kurapika from a close distance was a comfort in itself. Even if he insisted that he didn’t need help, Leorio would offer it anyway. 

On more than one occasion Leorio had found Kurapika passed out somewhere in the lower decks after using too much Nen at once. And he would pick him up-- _ oh my god, when did he get so thin _ \--and bring him to his cabin because if Kurapika woke up in the infirmary he would probably kill Leorio on the spot, and he would close the door quietly and try to ignore the looks from the other Zodiacs as he returned to his post. 

“I’m a doctor,” he told Cheadle on one such night when she had questioned why Leorio always seemed to be the one who ended up taking on the aftermath of Emperor Time, “do no harm, right?”

Ugh. Cheadle.  _ She must have given me the wrong time. Nobody’s here but me.  _ Cursing himself for getting up earlier than he had to, Leorio set his briefcase on the cold linoleum floor and sat down. If he really tried he could span the width of the hallway with his legs alone. Being tall was fun sometimes.

Quite some time had passed before Leorio heard heavy footsteps coming his way.  _ Must be Mizai _ , he thought, his joints cracking as he stood up. He grimaced.  _ Shit, I’m old. Choosing to ignore that for now. _

Leorio closed his eyes, adjusted his tie. “Morning, Mizai. I was starting to think I had the wrong building.”

“Right building. Wrong time.”

Leorio’s blood ran cold. His eyes snapped open. In front of him wasn’t the Ox. He looked down.

Kurapika looked up at him through his bangs, seeming bored. His hair had gotten long, falling in his face and brushing the nape of his neck. He was paler than he used to be, the planes of his face sharper and more pronounced. He was taller, though that could have had more to do with the steel-toed combat boots he was wearing than anything else. His eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, so heavy that he looked like he had slept in eyeliner. Leorio swallowed. Kurapika looked so...tired. In his jet black suit and tie, he seemed desaturated, like an old black and white photograph. It was so different from when he wore his Kurta clothing. Leorio wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“What’s with the suit?” Leorio found himself sneering at Kurapika. His tone was guarded and accusatory, loaded with months of anger and rejection and, most frustratingly, relief that Kurapika was at least still alive.

“I’m trying to make myself presentable for my employer,” Kurapika shot back, “though I’m aware that’s a foreign concept to you.” 

Leorio felt a vein pop out of his forehead. “Glad to see you’re a ray of sunshine as always.” He looked away, staring at a point on the floor down the hall. “Figures you’d be here early. You know. Since you’re so put together.”

Kurapika cocked an eyebrow. “Early? I’m an hour late.”

Leorio wanted to strangle him so bad. His brown eyes flashed as he leaned down to meet Kurapika’s infuriatingly unbothered face. “Why didn’t you tell me, asshole? I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes thinking I was the first one here!”

Kurapika stared straight ahead. “You didn’t ask.”

Leorio knew he looked like he was about to explode, and at the moment he didn’t even care that he was probably playing right into whatever power trip Kurapika had going on. He spluttered some nonsense, trying to articulate his rage in a coherent way, and Kurapika just watched him, shifting his weight to one leg and crossing his arms. Leorio grumbled about how inconsiderate Kurapika was being until it occurred to him that he still had a meeting to attend. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Leorio.”

Leorio composed himself and slicked back his hair. “The door’s locked. I already tried it. Until someone decides to let us in, we’re not going to that meeting.” He looked smugly down at his friend (enemy? Frenemy?), still pissed but comforted by the fact that he wasn’t the only person who would face Cheadle’s wrath later. 

Kurapika was unmoved by Leorio’s confidence. “Move.”

“I told you, I already tried it!”

“Would you just move?” Kurapika sounded annoyed now. Good. He deserved to be inconvenienced.

“What, you think knocking’s gonna work? Why didn’t I think of that?” Leorio felt like he was back on the boat before the hunter exam. He wasn’t normally a particularly sarcastic person (nobody wants a doctor with poor bedside manner) but Kurapika had a way of getting under his skin that made him act like a child. 

Kurapika rolled his eyes-- _ he isn’t wearing his contacts-- _ and shoved Leorio in the side. For someone that looked like he weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, he was surprisingly strong. Leorio glared at him.

Kurapika pushed the door open, gesturing for Leorio to go in. “It’s a push door. But you tried that, right?”

At that moment Leorio was willing to forsake his dream of becoming a doctor and commit murder in broad daylight (which he had already done as a hunter, but this time it would be personal). He slouched to fit through the doorway, neck burning with embarrassment at having made such a stupid mistake. “Thanks, Kurapika,” he muttered, barely audible.

“It’s  _ Mister  _ Kurapika.”

Leorio barely stopped himself from screaming, mostly because his coworkers were only a hundred feet away, but also because he knew if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

_ This is gonna be a long meeting. _

* * *

Kurapika was torn between being angry at himself for immediately making Leorio hate him again and being proud of that comeback. 

He took his seat as quietly as possible, knowing that Mizai was staring. None of the other Zodiacs knew about his “project”. They likely assumed that the new Rat was as irresponsible as Pariston. But Mizai was more perceptive than most, even Cheadle. He probably noticed the not-quite-healed cut under Kurapika’s cheekbone, still raw from two nights ago. He  _ definitely  _ noticed how Kurapika’s whole body tensed when Leorio sat down across from him, loudly setting his gaudy briefcase down with a  _ clunk _ . 

Cheadle cut herself off in the middle of a sentence to welcome Kurapika, which he didn’t appreciate. He was perfectly fine flying under the radar.  _ Why is it,  _ he wondered,  _ that no matter how hard Leorio tries to draw the attention of everyone in a room, I’m always the one that ends up being noticed? _

The meeting was a blur from start (or, more accurately, middle) to finish. Kurapika spent most of it watching Leorio out of the corner of his eye. The title of the Boar suited him; he kept speaking out of turn and almost spilling his coffee, and if it weren’t for how guilty he felt about ghosting him, Kurapika would’ve laughed. All he allowed himself was a smirk and an eye roll here and there. He knew Leorio was angry with him.  _ And I deserve it. I’d be mad at me, too. _ Still, being in the same room as Leorio (outside of the context of life and death circumstances) after so long was nice, in the way that coming home after a stressful day of work to a messy room is nice. Familiarly infuriating.

Kurapika didn’t notice that the other Zodiacs--save for Leorio, Cheadle, and Mizai--had left the room until Mizai snapped him out of his own thoughts.

“You okay, Kurapika? You seem a little out of it.”

Kurapika stood up too fast but ignored the temporary loss of his vision. At this point, he was used to it. “I’m fine, Mizai. Long week,”

“Any news on that lead you had? With the museum?”

Kurapika shot Mizai a look that said  _ choose your next words carefully. _

Mizai took the hint and dropped the issue. “I see. At least now you’ll have some time to kill. God knows the rest of us are thankful for that.”

Kurapika’s eyes seemed to sharpen as he realized what Mizai had said. “What do you mean?”

“Man, you really  _ are  _ out of it today. It’s like Cheadle said: since last summer our contacts with the Princes have been MIA. Complete radio silence. We were supposed to get an update this week but it never came.”

“So… what? We just… do nothing? Until we hear from them?”

“I mean, you don’t  _ have  _ to do nothing. You can still take some side gigs since you’re a blacklist hunter--you guys are always in high demand--but most of us are taking advantage of this. It’s not often that the Hunter Association gets a vacation. And from what I can tell, it looks like you need it more than anyone.”

Kurapika mulled over Mizai’s brief summary of the meeting.  _ A vacation. What the hell am I gonna do with a vacation? _

“I appreciate your concern, Mizai,” Kurapika finally conceded, “but I have work to do.”

Across the room, Leorio was arguing with Cheadle about something. His face was red and even though he loomed over Cheadle, he looked like a child being scolded by his mother. Mizai sighed. “Those two are at it again. It’s been like this for months.”

Kurapika gave a noncommittal nod to acknowledge Mizai without giving away his curiosity.  _ What’s got Leorio so pissed off? And why is Cheadle tolerating it? _

Mizai said something that resembled a goodbye (or maybe a “good luck”), but Kurapika was too distracted to answer. The fluorescent lights made his head hurt. Though he hadn’t used Emperor Time in over a week, he felt like he’d been hit by a truck. 

_ I need a cigarette. _

Kurapika slipped silently out of the conference room and down the hall to a staircase that led to the back of the building. The air was cold and smelled like snow, and even in the nicest part of Yorknew, the streets were gritty and full of litter. 

Coughing down smoke, Kurapika instantly felt physically worse but emotionally a tiny bit better.  _ Time to kill _ , Mizai had said.  _ What do normal people do when they have time to kill? _

As if to answer his question, the door behind him slammed open, and one Leorio Paladiknight stumbled out into the cold. 

For a moment he just stared at Kurapika. Then, “You have a lot of explaining to do, sunshine.”

“I suppose I do,” said Kurapika, his vision blurring for the second time that morning.

Whatever it was that Leorio yelled, Kurapika didn’t hear it, because he was halfway to the ground by the time he even registered that he was being yelled at.

Because Kurapika always had to have the last word, he impressed even himself by managing to croak out a “Fuck off,” before losing consciousness.

It was supposed to be an “I’m sorry.” __


End file.
